2021 has passed, the annual hot word deserves to be awarded to the "meta-universe", and the meta-universe concept promoted by various manufacturers is inseparable from the cooperation of hardware, which refers to the hardware is the VR headset (Virtual Reality Headset, also known as VR glasses), so it is time to bring a VR entry guide to everyone.
Understand the configuration, and then talk about purchasing
The original VR headset had to drag a long data line to connect with the PC or game console, and the headset was more just the role of the display, not responsible for graphics operations, but chose to borrow the computing power of the PC to achieve a better picture quality experience.
Manufacturers know that portability is the foundation of VR equipment to become popular, but in the stage when mobile chips fail to meet the computing power required by VR devices, major brands still choose the latter between portability and performance. It even forced some brands to launch semi-finished products such as VR backpacks in that period of high and low years.
▲ HP Z VR Backpack G1 workstation, which is already a relatively thin and light product
Fortunately, the entire industry is progressing, so that chip manufacturers see the future commercial value of VR/AR, so that they are willing to throw money into no man's land in the wild period.
Through several years of hard work, the pioneers have smashed some results, such as the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2.
The hustle and bustle of the world is all profit, and the world is all profitable. When the hardware facilities develop to a certain height, everyone invariably heads in the direction of the all-in-one machine.
iQiyi Adventure 3, Pico Neo 3, HTC Vive Focus 3, last year's mainstream flagship VR headsets have chosen to embrace the Snapdragon XR2, of course, including the acclaimed and popular Oculus Quest 2.
In this issue, I will also compare these devices with very similar positioning and configuration, and first look at the comparison table of these products.
▲ The winner of the single parameter is marked in red
The following is a brief description of the meaning of each configuration according to the main configurations on the table.
Monocular display pixels
Needless to say, this number is naturally the higher the better, taking quest 2 as an example, its monocular display pixels are 1832×1920, the number of pixels seems to have been very high, but in view of the fact that after we wear the head, the distance between the eyes and the screen is not more than a few centimeters, the picture delicate gap will be magnified, and the pixels are not too dense.
Of course, the number of pixels also has to follow the hardware configuration, such as the graphics computing power of the early mobile platform is not good, can not drive too high-definition screen, so the early VR headset always looks not delicate enough, the pixel particles are very obvious, and the Google Cardboard used in the mobile phone is not much better.
At present, in the field of all-in-one machines, the main commercial Focus 3 is still the most fiercely stacked, with single-eye display pixels of 2448 x 2448. The Quest 2 is at a disadvantage in this regard.
Degrees of freedom DoF
DoF is known as Degree of Freedom, or Degree of Freedom for short. In the early days, the VR headset was only set to 3DoF, and the user's head could only be positioned to rotate along the X/Y/Z three axes in a fixed position, which meant that at that stage, the user could not move the body, but could only tilt and rotate the head perspective.
Today's 6DoF, more positioning of the user in the spatial coordinates, in short, the user wears a VR headset that supports the 6DoF function, which can move the body freely and rotate the head freely, while 3DoF can only allow the user to "stand pile output".
▲ Image source: Pupuru
However, with the development of spatial positioning technology, 3DoF devices have been gradually eliminated, and most of the products launched after 2021 have been equipped with 6DoF.
Adjustable interpupillary pitch IPD
When we go to get glasses, the optometrist will ask us to sit in front of a refractometer while sticking our heads forward. Then the machine starts to operate, first the two sides of the lens barrel will move to the appropriate position, and then the picture inside the mirror will change. Among them, the process of lens barrel movement is to measure the distance between the pupils of the human eye, that is, the distance of the pupils of both eyes.
Everyone's interpupillary distance is different, and in the VR headset, we are through the Fresnel lens to see the screen, the perspective is not as free as when we observe the real world, so whether the device supports adjustable interpupillary distance determines our field of vision, which in turn affects the use experience.
Sometimes we feel that the edge of the viewing angle is not clear enough, and it is very likely that the interpupillary distance is not adjusted to the appropriate position. Because Focus 3 and Adventure 3 built-in two LCD screens, so support interpupillary distance infinity display, more applicable, most users can adjust to the most suitable for their own interpupillary distance to play, and Quest 2 is a whole LCD screen, interpupillary distance adjustment gear is only 3 levels adjustable, the scope of application will be a little smaller.
Viewing angle FOV
As mentioned earlier, when we wear the VR headset, we look at the screen through the Fresnel lens, and the Fresnel lens will cause more or less obscuration of the viewing angle, and the edge will also produce distortion. Therefore, the quality of the lens determines the viewing angle of a VR glasses.
From the above table, it is not difficult to see that Quest 2 is not the first in terms of hardware configuration, but it can achieve sales of more than 10 million, single-handedly set up a milestone in VR products, and promote the entire metaverse topic in 2021, mainly relying on the huge number of consumer content.
There is Sega Saturn in the front, and there is a domestic axe host in the back. Products that are compromised by the lack of content abound, and facebook, which comes from software, is of course well versed in this, so they have built their own advantages in content while improving the hardware.
Games, streaming media, office software, after several years of accumulation, Oculus platform has thousands of applications, including "Resident Evil 4", "Medal of Honor", Virtual Desktop, Netflix and other large games and mainstream software, but also through wireless streaming / wired way, with the PC side of steamVR connection, to get more content, this is Facebook's positive flywheel, It is also the reason why it dares to declare the confidence to fully enter the meta-universe.
Looking at the hardware specifications, price, and amount of content, the most worthwhile VR headset is still Oculus Quest 2, so it is not difficult to understand that the VR glasses launched in 2020 can still become one of the most sought-after gifts for Christmas 2021.
However, in front of mainland players, there is also the problem of Facebook's restrictions on the internet in some regions, which will not be expanded here. All in all, before you buy a Quest 2, please take this factor into account and think twice.
Only when the preparation is done well can you have a good time
If you're ready for vr, you're half a foot in the door of the virtual world.
The last step in knocking on the door is to register an account, and in my Quest 2, for example, there are two ways to log in: directly link your Facebook account to login, or register an Oculus account separately.
Through the e-commerce channel to buy on behalf of the small partner, you can also ask the store to register on behalf of, although this method is convenient, if the follow-up privacy leakage and other issues, the identification of responsibility is more troublesome, conditional small partners or self-registration.
If you are buying a domestic brand product, this step is much simpler, and you can complete the registration through the mobile phone number.
▲ Registration page for Pico accounts
When you finish registering, you may have been eager to immerse yourself in the "metaverse" to play it in the dark, when you wear the VR headset on your head, pay attention to a few points, can greatly improve the wearing comfort and vertigo.
The first is the interpupillary distance and headband elasticity, what is the appropriate interpupillary distance? When wearing glasses, the edge of the viewing angle is not obscured, and when the head moves slightly, the central picture does not become blurred, which is the appropriate interpupillary distance. The headband tightness is more metaphysical, and it is most suitable if it is not loose or tight.
Too loose, easy to fall off when playing FPS, lightsaber games, and the field of vision will become blurred, constantly adjusting the position of the glasses to affect the experience; too tight, it will compress the eye nerves, resulting in dizziness after playing for a period of time.
Quest 2 original is a fabric elastic band, through the Velcro and buckle adjustment elastic, relatively simple, and the fabric material is easy to turn yellow after a period of use, so it is recommended that you buy a higher-end elite headband, plastic material durable, and can be quickly adjusted through the pulley, the official price of $49, in addition to third-party accessories optional.
Secondly, for small partners wearing glasses, VR glasses have become a distant dream... Do you? In fact, brands and third parties have already had solutions to this.
First, the VR headset itself reserves some space, wearing myopic glasses can also wear VR headset, but that feeling is like wearing two pairs of glasses to watch a 3D movie is as unpleasant; second, Oculus and the online dispensing website FramesDirect launched magnetic myopia lenses, which adsorbed it to Fresnel lenses, eliminating the trouble of wearing frame glasses.
I checked by the way, although Pico and iQiyi did not launch similar official accessories, but the e-commerce channel has long had third-party stores on the shelves of related products.
In fact, since the development of VR products, the experience and ecology have gradually become perfect, and the use experience of the product itself has been excellently improved. When the amount of ownership went up, it gave birth to many accessories manufacturers to create cheap and beautiful accessories for them, VR said so long in the first year, and today's VR industry is finally on the right track.
What the VR headset can do at this stage
With hardware, what about software?
Steam released the list of the best VR games of 2021 last week, so I compared the top 100 list with the Oculus content library and found that there is a coincidence rate of nearly 60%, which means that players can play most of the top VR games on the PC platform on the Quest 2, and the gap between all-in-one VR and PC VR is further narrowed.
▲ Top 10 of the best VR games of the year list
And as I said earlier, we can play games on Steam VR through the way of screen streaming, including the VR game ceiling "Half-Life: Alex", so you don't have to worry too much about buying the VR headset home, you can only idle and accumulate dust.
▲ Half-Life: Alex game screen
Even AAA giants like Capcom have begun to create games for VR devices.
When Capcom announced that it was going to launch a Resident Evil 4 transplant on Quest 2, my heart was unwavering, and the word "transplant" for Capcom was synonymous with "fried cold rice" for Capcom.
But when I bought the game and experienced it firsthand, I found that IGN gave this ported game a 9 points, which is reasonable.
In the novice village stage, the game will teach you two sets of controls, one is to switch weapons through the keys, which is nothing new, and the other is to hang the main/secondary weapons around your waist and back, and grab and hold the weapons through the handle, which is intuitive and cool.
▲ Remove the shotgun hanging from your back
▲ Pick up the pistol in your waist
When the infected villagers in the game approached step by step, I raised my gun to knock them back one by one, which was an immersion that could not be given to me on either platform, and at that moment I felt that I really became Lyon, although it sounded very middle two, but it undoubtedly made the game experience to a higher level.
In addition, perhaps the game itself has been born for some years, or limited by the function, Capcom did not 3D the CG cutscene, the player can still only look at the flat CG animation like a third party, the experience is slightly fragmented.
But when I took off the Quest 2, my heart was looking forward to the next time I entered that virtual world and once again incarnated as Leon to complete the mission in the game.
Resident Evil 4 gameplay lasts nearly 15 hours, but takes up less than 8GB of storage, which is not as good as we thought, but it is enough to immerse, and I can't help but start looking forward to the next generation of VR platforms, which will definitely be more expressive.
In addition to games, Oculus content library has a lot of productivity tools, some time ago they also launched Horizon World, which builds a complete social world, a Zuckerberg mouth infinitely beautiful metaverse. Unfortunately, only users in the United States and Canada can experience it at present, and I can only see the relevant introduction, and I can't download and install it.
In Oculus, users can spend by credit card/PayPal/redemption code, which has a certain threshold but is not difficult, while on iQiyi and Pico, it is necessary to recharge tokens to make purchases, just as simple as buying apps on the App Store.
In contrast, the current amount of content on domestic platforms is still too small, if you can match Oculus as soon as possible, domestic VR players can try virtual reality technology at a lower cost of use and price, and only then can domestic players see the real metaverse.